During the lockdown we all became improvised chefs. We have experimented with recipes, bread making, making pizzas and sourdough and trying to reproduce dishes from great restaurants. Cooking for almost all of us was a real relief valve. But did you know that cooking in addition to being able to calm our anxieties and anxieties (many psychologists have set up real kitchens in their studios where they can practice ‘alternative therapies’ with their patients) is also able to improve our neuronal activity ? “The kitchen is a gym for the mind – explained to Fanpage.it the dr Antonio Cerasa, neuroscienziato and researcher of IRIB-CNR of Cosenza, expert in artificial intelligence and neurorehabilitation and author of studies and research on Cooking Therapy – And in particular, cooking is able to rehabilitate people from a motor, cognitive, emotional and social point of view “
How the chef’s mind works
We are now used to seeing chefs in action on television: we see them directing the kitchen brigade, checking each pot, checking the oven temperature and then serving up each dish in an exemplary manner. Given the amount of information they can process simultaneously, we shouldn’t be surprised if their brains are as developed as that of chess champions or musicians. “Top restaurant chefs have a super brain, just like mountaineers or basketball players “. In the kitchen there is no time to concentrate on the present moment, you have to think about what you will need to do after five, ten and fifteen minutes: “Chefs must check the times of the oven, the table and the orders. They have ten different timers in mind and everything is zipped and concentrated in one specific area: the cerebellum. This is the area of the brain responsible for creating new procedural learning “. There aren’t many professions so multitaksing and multicentric, explains the researcher: “There are surgeons or conductors, jobs that allow you to coordinate several people at the same time by performing a single act “.
La cooking therapy
The desire to apply this knowledge to a rehabilitation model arises from the study of the brain of chefs. “There are people who have mental and motor coordination difficulties. They have disordered, overlapping thoughts and dysmetrical movements (an altered execution of voluntary movements). And for these people there is no form of cognitive rehabilitation” explains the researcher. Hence the idea of creating a Cooking therapy protocol. “A kind of training in the kitchen. At the Sant’Anna Institute in Crotone, thanks to the collaboration of therapists and chefs, we offered patients a special two-month training: every day they prepared increasingly complex recipes, adding dishes and preparations to follow at the same time “. The results were surprising: “At the end of the two months the cognitive abilities of the patients increased significantly“. But the applications of this protocol are many: “We have also successfully experienced it for the guests of San Patrignano: cooking is able to rehabilitate people not only from a motor and cognitive point of view but also from an emotional and social point of view “.
Cooking therapy for everyone
In fact, cooking is not only useful for people who have cognitive difficulties but can also be useful for those suffering from anxiety and burnout: “Cooking means being able to obtain benefits on several levels – explained the doctor to Fanpage.it Sebastiana Roccaro, psychologist and psychotherapist expert in Cooking Therapy – Physical, cognitive, social, intra-personal. And it means recalling traditions, family ties through smells and flavors, giving shape to creativity, strengthening self-esteem, taking care of one’s body “. Embracing cooking therapy also means overturning the classic assumption “I’m sick so I eat” in “I’m sick so I cook”. “To cook it can help as it allows you to activate old and new communication processes, manage anxieties and fears, evoke memories. Cooking with and for oneself or for the other is a tool for regain possession of one’s daily life after periods of suffering or simply become aware of the psycho-physical well-being as a lifestyle “. In the psychologist’s office we no longer find a bed and an armchair but a hob and a refrigerator full of ingredients to practice cooking. “For my patients I started by trying to give each dish a psychological reading, this process allowed me to identify in some preparations some actions, or “phases”, that would give the possibility to “work” on some characteristics and personality traits“The Cooking therapy workshops include sessions in small groups, in pairs or even for single users. “The idea developed over the years was to be able to use the act of cooking as a tool to regain psycho-physical well-being and ensure that preparing food as well as being a daily action assumed a therapeutic value“. On the other hand, we almost all experienced the therapeutic value of cooking last March: “We can consider it a spontaneous and unstructured form of Cooking Therapy and a confirmation of how useful cooking therapy can be “. Cooking Therapy is a new tool that uses an ancient and daily act: “To cook – stresses the psychologist – is equivalent to caring for the mind, body and soul “.
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